Saturday, April 25, 2009

"Christians" Again Defending Ungodliness: Touch Not The Beauty Anointed & Do The Pretty Ones No Harm

**Update at the bottom**

This is so wearisome, but it appears, yet again, that professing Christians are defending another worldly person, assuming she's a Christian. I am referring to Carrie Prejean, the woman who was runner-up for Miss USA. She answered a judge's question about her views on homosexual "marriage". She is a public woman and gave a public answer; she wants to say she lost her crown (a mere worldly "beauty" (which isn't true beauty) temporal crown) for her answer, so we should examine what she said. If the pagent judges are allowed to judge her on her answer, all the more Christians should too. Its just that our standard is to be higher than anyones: God Himself and His Word.

Her answer was:

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman."

Well there's a few problems I have with all of this, to be honest. First I don't know that she's a Christian. Taking a stand for traditional marriage does not reveal faith in Jesus Christ, because even a Mormon, a Roman Catholic, or a Jehovah's Witness or Muslim will do that.

It turns out that Carrie knew this topic was a possibility and so she should've prepared for it. If this was her preparation, that's even more scary:

FOXNews.com: Did your stomach sink when you first heard you picked Perez Hilton's question?

Carrie Prejean: I had a gut feeling. I knew he was controversial, and so was the question. Out of all the topics I studied up on, I dreaded that one, I prayed I would not be asked about gay marriage. If I had any other question, I know I would have won.
~Source

If you see what she said, it was a "truth is relative" answer. For her, because of her family traditions, she thinks marriage is between a man and a woman (it turns out her sister is in the military and is a homosexual activist, so one wonders how strong of a tradition this was and it could also be a factor in her weak answer).

Furthermore, it isn't great that in this country homosexuals can marry! How this is seen as a great freedom is unthinkable. Where's the grieving over sodomite unions as a Christian? And why defend a person who says it is?


Professing Christians need to go back and read Romans 1 again. This is serious. Homosexuality is not an optional lifestyle; its damnable according to 1Cor. 6. Its not something we ignore as Christians; its something we confront. Same with modesty. Modesty isn't an option. If we claim Jesus Christ as our Lord, we are to conduct ourselves in that way, which includes how we dress. I'm afraid the bar has been so lowered that it doesn't cause discomfort for people to see what's going on around us, in HIS name even. Its one thing for the world to strutt around men and women in a bikini with breasts hanging out. That's bad enough. But for Christians to do that, and then other Christians to DEFEND them, is absolutely incredible and disheartening. Romans 14 and 1Cor. 8.


1Ti 2:9 likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, 10 but with what is proper for women who profess godliness--with good works.

In this day and age when everyone claims to be a "Christian" when there is no fruit or proclaimation, or worse, when there is false teaching and bad fruit shown, we need to more, now than ever, test all things and that includes all people and all claims, to see if they are from God.
As Christians, we aren't called to be gullible. We are to be discerning. We are to test. We are to challenge. When a majority of "Christians" deny the Holy Spirit is a "living entity" or that Satan is real but merely a symbol of evil, we've got a LOT of confronting and challenging, and then preaching to do....within the churches and our familes.

I know the risks of standing up for truth. I know what its like to be persecuted by unbelievers as well as professing believers. When you know the Truth is being attacked, you don't back down. Unless you don't really believe it, or fear man, or want a crown or a promotion.


Prejean had time to prepare for her answer on this question. Her answer was man-centered and was Post-Modern, making herself and her family, the determiner of her view. She did not go back to the Bible. She left is as merely her opinion, what's good for her family. But the issue is always what God says. This would've been a perfect time to proclaim God's righteousness. If Prejean is a Christian (and we don't know that), then what is her motive for being in the beauty pagent? Was it as a Christian? If it was, she failed. Christ wasn't brought into at all. Folks, she's NOT being persecuted for Christ. It could've been a Mormon who gave her answer and she would've lost.


As usual, my problem has yet again, more to do with the defenders of Prejean than even Prejean herself. Why are Christians so quick to accept anyone who says "traditional marriage" (not even "Lord, Lord", but let's include that also), yet denouce those who know and love Jesus Christ and the Truth? Why slap on HIS name to anyone who says anything remotely conservative (that didn't happen here as it was offered as optional) and then cry "hands off!" when such a person is challenged and not believed? Are you a Christian because you say you are? Or because you really are? Are the standards so low that we will take everyone's word they are a Christian, when they don't walk in the Light nor profess Him?


Can we be overly critical of Christians? Pink answers this:

"Is it possible to be too critical of Christians (?) nowadays?" Why the qualifying "nowadays"? Has God lowered His standard—to meet these evil times? Is it permissible or expedient for me to compromise because the present generation is so lax and carnal? Do not the days in which our lot is cast, call for a clearer drawing of the line between the Church and the world? If so, should not this help to determine my conduct toward the individual?


We are mindful that large numbers hold the view that God requires less from people in degenerate times—but we know of nothing in His Word which supports them. Rather are such days the very time when the Christian most needs to show his colors, when shallowness and hollowness marks the religious profession all around, there is greater urgency for us to make manifest the reality that we are "strangers and pilgrims" in this scene. The Scriptures are just as much the Rule—and the sole rule for us to walk by—as they were for our more godly forebears. In the Day to come, we shall be judged by them as truly as they will be. It is never right to do wrong—nor to condone wrong.


John, the apostle of love, began his third epistle with these words, "The elder unto the well-beloved Gaius, whom I love in the Truth." What a needed word is this for today, when so much that passes for love, even in avowedly Christian circles, is nothing but a sickly sentimentality at the expense of the Truth. One of the outstanding cries in the religious world, is to this effect— "though we have differed in our beliefs and practices, let us now sink our differences and come together in love." When I was the pastor of a church in Sydney, I was regarded as a narrow-minded bigot, because on what Rome calls "good Friday" I refused to take part in an "ecumenical Communion service," where Fundamentalists, Liberals, Unitarians, and Evolutionists were invited to gather together, and thereby express "brotherly love" for one another. What a travesty and mockery! The wisdom which is from above is "first pure, then peaceable" (James 3:17). The more I am walking in the Truth and the more my brother is doing the same—the more cause have we to love one another.

If pride and haughtiness are to be reprehended; then mock humility or even an undue occupation with our own frailty and faultiness, is not to be commended. If we must wait until we are blameless, then there are many precepts of Scripture we cannot act upon. If we must tarry until our own character and conduct be faultless, then we are disqualified from rebuking anybody. We greatly fear that many have created their own difficulty or deterrent through a wrongful appropriation of those words "he who is without sin—let him first cast a stone" (John 8:7). How often have we heard professing Christians say, when it had become their manifest duty to admonish another, "Who am I—to cast stones at others?" It should be remembered, that John 8:7 was not spoken to conscientious saints, jealous of the honor of the Lord, anxious to promote the good of others—but to hypocritical pharisees, who were deliberately seeking to ensnare Christ.

Hence the force of "bearing with one another in love" (Eph 4:2); yet that must not be twisted into "winking at one another's faults" or condoning sin—under the pretense of love.


No, we cannot "always tell" whether a professing Christian is a regenerate or unregenerate person, and therefore it behooves us to be cautious and conservative, lest we be guilty of giving that which is holy—unto dogs (Matt 7:6). It is a very serious and solemn matter to encourage a deluded soul in his deception, as we do when we lead him to believe that we regard him as a Christian. But how is this to be avoided? By a withholding the tokens of fellowship; for example, refusing to address as "Brother" or "Sister" —from all whom we stand in doubt of, especially from those whose walk is manifestly worldly and contrary to the precepts of Scripture. While we cannot read the hearts of those we mix with—we can test their outward life by the Word, and if its general tenor is opposed to the requirements of holiness, and is contrary to the example of Christ—we certainly are not warranted in regarding them as children of God.


Unquote.


We are to reserve the right hand of fellowship to those we believe really are Christians, and there must be profession and fruit, as I said. To label worldiness (immodesty, foul-mouth, x-rated links on "Christian" websites) with the holy name of Jesus Christ is abominable!


A.W. Tozer once correctly stated (and you can insert "conservative" for "prophet" and see the same thing):


"Many tender-minded Christians fear to sin against love by daring to inquire into anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest prophet to hit their town lest they be guilty of rejecting something which may be of God… This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality. But in sober fact it indicates no such thing. It may indeed be evidence of the absence of the Holy Spirit.

Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality.“Try the spirits” is a command of the Holy Spirit to the Church (1 John 4:1). We may sin as certainly by approving the spurious as by rejecting the genuine To appraise things with a heart of love and then to act on the results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world (Tozer On The Holy Spirit, August 3).

Slice of Laodicea's article has a good response as well.

**Update**

Prejean spoke at all five services at her church (the pastor didn't know her prior to meeting up in NY after the pagent) and they are calling it "No Compromise: Standing Firm On Your Faith". When I turned on the live video feed, the pastor was praising God for the support she has received from the "gay community" even though they differ in their "opinions". Prejean keeps referring to her answer as her "opinion". Again, truth is lowered to mere opinion and THIS IS THE PROBLEM I HAVE HAD. Heterosexuality vs. homosexuality isn't a matter of opinion, but of absolute TRUTH found alone in Scripture.

4 comments:

Baptist Girl said...

Hi Denise,
Well said. When I saw this lady on the news and how she paraded in her bikini, strutting her stuff is the only way I can put it, I had a hard time seeing Christ in her. The problem today folks use Jesus to bring them fame and fortune. I do not know if this lady is a christian but if she is I really question how she can be on a show that based on plain pride and fame and self.

Cristina

Thuyen Tran said...

No one I know said that her being in the pageant is an example for Christians. Many of us say the opposite. We rally behind her because of her unfair treatment by three of the judges, Hilton (who was most blatant), Jacobs, and Moakler, and because they lash out at the idea anyone can express a view that is biblical in public (which is hypocritical given their liberal guy, Obama, said the same thing).

It is not so much about her. It is about countering bigotry from these folks against any Christian, whether mature or not in the faith, who actually answer a question on morality and then getting attacked for doing so.

Denise said...

Cris,

Exactly.

Denise said...

Thuyen,

Yes I understand that aspect. It really was a set up by Hilton (he Twittered about it the night before). However, that is to be expected by the unbelievers, right?

Perhaps there is a divison---many Christians from what I could tell, praised Carrie Prejean for giving a "Christian" answer and others thought she gave a strong "conservative" answer. In the end she was trashed by the "tolerant" Left (which proved yet again they are NOT tolerant of those who disagree with them). But her answer still, was pretty weak because she left the homosexual "marriage" as optional for others. I hope you see what I mean.